Making Things by Hand in Swarthmore Half a Century Ago

To the Editor,

After reading the Swarthmorean article “Made by Hand” earlier this month, I thought I’d share this almost 50-year-old article about a seasonal crafted Christmas shop that Louise Howe Rowland, Prue Dunning, and I had for two years in Swarthmore.

We opened it so that creative young mothers and others in town would have a place to sell their handcrafted items. I look at it as a vanguard of other full-time craft shops for local artists that opened after ours, the Plum Pudding.

I now live in southwest Colorado, but my son, Jim Taylor, and his family live in a house on Harvard Avenue that has been in the family for three generations. Louise’s family’s house was three-generational too. Prue Dunning and her husband Ed still live in Swarthmore. Louise still has this article.

Sincerely,
Carol Zimmerman Taylor
Cortez, Colorado